Male nurse, female peri care

kardz30 · Jul 17, 2017

Pericare but continue as normal. Use the betadine swabs thoroughly. Exercise careful sterile technique as best as possible. In the real world with patients moving and being difficult absolute sterility is often not possible. People do clean technique on themselves at home with little problem. Just use as good as sterile technique as possible.

Here is a comment as a male nurse myself I will share with you. When it comes to female patients, especially ones that are remotely young, bring another witness into a room. Another nurse, CNA, or whoever. If the patient is pissy, vindictive, or whatever, they could easily accuse you of something inappropriate. This is the world we live in. An accusation alone can ruin your life regardless of evidence, and at a minimum just the accusation will put you through a ton of stress. It's in female nature to play victim whenever they want attention or to mess with a male they don't like. I expect to catch heat on here for those comments, but anyone that has had a crazy ex girlfriend knows what I'm talking about. Young women, middle aged, and old all are capable...and one comment and you are in the hotseat, no matter how false.

The best thing to do is volunteer to trade doing caths and peri care for male patients and have female nurses do it for your female patients. If you can't, always have a witness.

Also, one of the best things you can do...is buy an audio recorder that automatically turns on with voice activation and can record many hours (like a full 12 or more at least) and save it to your computer every day. If anything ever comes up with a coworker (female coworkers eat their young and can be vindictive as well) or a patient, you have the recording. It's hard to prove a negative (like you can't prove you DIDN'T do something...because if you did not do it, there's no evidence you didn't do it)...but if you have recordings of conversations between you and patients or coworkers and you are in the right, you can catch others in lies.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash females here...but as a male in a female dominated environment, at some point you will get messed with. Females play a completely different ballgame when it comes to adversarial interactions. Don't ever tell anyone you have anything recording, just have something small in your pocket or a audio recorder that looks like a pen.

NurseSpeedy, ADN, LPN, RN · Jul 17, 2017

Pericare but continue as normal. Use the betadine swabs thoroughly. Exercise careful sterile technique as best as possible. In the real world with patients moving and being difficult absolute sterility is often not possible. People do clean technique on themselves at home with little problem. Just use as good as sterile technique as possible.
Here is a comment as a male nurse myself I will share with you. When it comes to female patients, especially ones that are remotely young, bring another witness into a room. Another nurse, CNA, or whoever. If the patient is pissy, vindictive, or whatever, they could easily accuse you of something inappropriate. This is the world we live in. An accusation alone can ruin your life regardless of evidence, and at a minimum just the accusation will put you through a ton of stress. It's in female nature to play victim whenever they want attention or to mess with a male they don't like. I expect to catch heat on here for those comments, but anyone that has had a crazy ex girlfriend knows what I'm talking about. Young women, middle aged, and old all are capable...and one comment and you are in the hotseat, no matter how false.
The best thing to do is volunteer to trade doing caths and peri care for male patients and have female nurses do it for your female patients. If you can't, always have a witness.
Also, one of the best things you can do...is buy an audio recorder that automatically turns on with voice activation and can record many hours (like a full 12 or more at least) and save it to your computer every day. If anything ever comes up with a coworker (female coworkers eat their young and can be vindictive as well) or a patient, you have the recording. It's hard to prove a negative (like you can't prove you DIDN'T do something...because if you did not do it, there's no evidence you didn't do it)...but if you have recordings of conversations between you and patients or coworkers and you are in the right, you can catch others in lies.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash females here...but as a male in a female dominated environment, at some point you will get messed with. Females play a completely different ballgame when it comes to adversarial interactions. Don't ever tell anyone you have anything recording, just have something small in your pocket or a audio recorder that looks like a pen.

Whenever possible it is best to have a second person in the room as a witness who is the same gender as the patient-male OR female. Honestly, it can happen to anybody. The hidden tape recorder is a bit paranoid, possibly illegal, and at the very least a HIPAA violation (because there WILL be patient info discussed at some point in a twelve hour day)...then saving the recording on your own computer each day is just asking for trouble.

Nalon1 RN/EMT-P, BSN, RN · Jul 17, 2017

How is the sterile field compromised due to menstruation?

It is not like the blood is gushing out and spraying everywhere.

Do peri care to clean up any blood that may be present, then prepare and insert foley as you normally would.

No greater chance of contamination due to menstruating vs non-menstruating.

Also confused by the hygiene products question. You will not insert a tampon, just use maxi-pads. If they have a foley, they are probably bed bound, so will be diapered, let the diaper absorb it. If they are able and want to, they may insert and remove a tampon themselves (depending on facility policy). There may be a need to remove a tampon, but if the patient is able, let them remove it, if they are unable, then you will need to remove it.

For the poster above that said use a voice recorder, that is a horrible idea and is a HIPPA violaton, as well as most likely a facility violation.

For your protection, have a witness in the room when inserting the foley, another female staff member is ideal, but a male staff member is better than doing it by yourself. Don't rely on family members as a witness, since they will not understand what is being done.

If the patient is awake, I always ask if they are OK with me putting the foley in with another person present. I have only had 2 patients refuse (both of Muslim faith).

BlueDawnRN, BSN · Jul 26, 2017

Peri care does not change when a woman is menstrating. The sterile field is not compromised. First of all, blood should not have bacteria in it. Secondly, it takes minutes to insert a catheter and hours for blood to seep out.

The sanitary pad has an adhesive on the back that allows it to stick to the woman's underwear. If the patient is able to do this herself, you need only to get her pads from the supply room.

Please don't audio record at work/clinical, as this is a crime. Doing so will get you kicked out of nursing school or cause you to lose your license.

Orca, ADN, ASN, RN · Jul 28, 2017

When it comes to female patients, especially ones that are remotely young, bring another witness into a room. Another nurse, CNA, or whoever. If the patient is pissy, vindictive, or whatever, they could easily accuse you of something inappropriate. This is the world we live in. An accusation alone can ruin your life regardless of evidence, and at a minimum just the accusation will put you through a ton of stress.

I was given this same advice during my orderly days more than 40 years ago. It is still valid advice. I don't go into rooms with females alone, and I make sure that my witness is female.

Orca, ADN, ASN, RN · Jul 28, 2017

Also, one of the best things you can do...is buy an audio recorder that automatically turns on with voice activation and can record many hours (like a full 12 or more at least) and save it to your computer every day. If anything ever comes up with a coworker (female coworkers eat their young and can be vindictive as well) or a patient, you have the recording.

It is likely illegal to record conversations without the other person's knowledge or consent. From Digital Media Law Project:

From a legal standpoint, the most important question in the recording context is whether you must get consent from one or all of the parties to a phone call or conversation before recording it. Federal law and many state wiretapping statutes permit recording if one party (including you) to the phone call or conversation consents. Other states require that all parties to the communication consent.

Cat10 · Dec 18, 2017

I second the audio recording suggestion.

edit: actually, get some legal advice on this one. A lawyer would have a different perspective.

labordude, BSN, RN · Dec 19, 2017

100% of my patients are female, all of them get peri-care multiple times during my shift. 90+% of them get a foley. I'd recommend reviewing female anatomy and also the procedure for placing a catheter if you are worried about menstrual blood contaminating your sterile field and as always...front to back, never back to front.

As for the witness advice, do with it what you will. I'm an L&D nurse. I do not take a witness with me, though my patient is very rarely alone as the partner and/or family is usually present. We do require a second trained person when placing catheters as a policy to reduce infections through breaks in sterile technique.